My Uncle Merlin is a tale of a young man, his uncle, and their unconventional journey through the vast unknown, on an unrelenting, dragon-propelled wizardly tower.

The young man in question is our main character who goes by the name of Eddie. He is ambitious, desperate to prove himself, and thus susceptible to morally questionable decisions. In other words, he has all the key ingredients for moving up in the world.

Sadly, he is still just an apprentice. On the other hand, his uncle and mentor is currently ranked the 7th most powerful wizard in the universe. At least according to the Daily Mirror Image, but you can never be too sure when it comes to the press... And While this is a lovely piece of trivia, it doesn’t really do much for Eddie, because he will be the one getting his hands dirty, while good old Merl idly naps in his comfy, fart riddled chair.

As there is talk of suspicious incidents happening throughout the galaxy, your sense of duty will send you on a legendary adventure to investigate a mind-boggling mystery, to protect mother universe you cherish so deeply, and to figure out just how you’re going to cash in on the whole hoopla.

Just a couple of things you should know before diving head first into the vast purpleness of outer space.

It’s All About The Journey

As you travel the universe, you will meet a bunch of interesting characters along the way, and It will be up to you to decide in which direction the conversations will go. Each encounter is strongly related to a whole bunch of other events. Your choices will determine whether help or harm comes your way, and at the same time tailor the overall storyline.

The BDSM Rating

Eddie’s abilities are determined by three factors - body, soul and mind. Depending on how high his stats are, you’ll be able to make additional choices that could help you get out of a sticky situation. Some events can alter your scores, and so can certain items.

Five’s A Crowd

The tower itself has a limited capacity, which means there can only be 4 people on the tower at any given time, including you and uncle Merlin. You might have to invite one of your fellow passengers to leave, to let the next one on board. This also means that if you’re going to let someone hop on, you’d better have a good sense of how they can be useful to you. Keep in mind that being charitable is a good way to get stuck floating in the middle of nowhere, with being devoured by a desperate dragon as your single viable option.

Feed The Goddamn Dragon!

Mind your fuel gauge at all times. You’ll have to keep your dragon nourished by any means necessary, in order to advance through the game. If this means you having to feed him the occasional passenger, so be it. They knew what they were getting into… ish...

Checky Yourself Before You Wrecky Yourself

Even though a lot of encounters can be fatal, there’s safety in the little green thingy hanging around your neck. When you die, the Checky Pointy amulet will send you to an almost identical parallel universe, to the beginning of your last conversation, or if you prefer, the start of the chapter. But that doesn’t mean you can throw common sense out the window just yet. The amulet has a limited amount of charges, which are hard to come by and will usually cost you an arm and a leg... and you have a limited amount of those as well.

Coin Incidents

There’s really no need to go into detail and explain how money works, is there? Ok, fine… You use it to buy stuff. Bribes are also an option... And so is backing Kickstarter campaigns... *cough, cough*

You might think he’s got it easy, being the star of a Kickstarter project and all, but Eddie’s tragic backstory is quite peculiar, and suggests he probably could have been a very successful X Factor contestant. He was raised by a nomadic tribe of ogres, after his parents met their demise in a case of XP-grind-gone-greedy. A couple of ogre scouts found him, and decided not to eat him on the spot, but rather to bring him back to camp for proper seasoning. Thankfully, the old ogre shaman sensed arcane powers within the boy, and it was clear that even though it was safe to eat him, his wizardly potential is far too great to allow his digestion. His gift saved his life, but there was no rescue from the name Edible Wizard.

As he grew to the acceptable size for his species, he felt it was time to move on. Like most youngsters his age, Eddie is fighting the cruel “you need experience, but no one will hire you, so you can’t get the required experience” conundrum. Luckily, after anything-but-thrilling story of paperwork and tedious bureaucracy, he found out he has living relatives - mostly uncles.

Merlin Moonrose is a Grand Wizard at the Royal Academy of Arcane Arts and Traffic Safety. Thanks to a perfect storm of a corrupt system and shameless nepotism, Merlin was able to hook Eddie up with an apprenticeship position. Sure it might raise an eyebrow or two, but what kind of a government employee would he be if he didn’t break a few rules for his own flesh and blood? And Eddie seems like a fine lad. I mean, he's young, scrawny and almost certainly incompetent, but at the very least, Merl knows you can always count on family. Or in this case, you can count on the family to do the heavy lifting while you sit back, relax and catch up on your stories!

Like “eat prey” without the “love”, like a joke listing two items without delivering a humorous third line, so would Eddie and Merlin be incomplete without their trusty dragon sidekick. George comes from a long line of so called “dragongineers”. His father was a chauffeur for the queen, his father before him was a royal navy carrier, and his father before him was a 4 cylinder internal combustion engine. Even though he is determined to stay loyal to his heritage, in his dreams he envisions himself as Georgie the dragon-sleigher, as his true wish is to work as one of the rides in Winter Wonderland.

Here you can see a quite detailed overview of our rewards, which are going to be lovingly made out of blood, sweat, and dragon tears. They're mostly digital, since paying for shipment all the way from Serbia makes the reward, and often life itself, not really worth the trouble.

We would also like to thank our Collaborating Wizards - Dušan Mirković and Djordje Veljović, who have, and also will, be helping us at times on our quest to create a fun, engaging experience.

The moment we were able to start working on the project full time, we set out to achieve a couple of key goals. We completed the first one by creating a fully functioning chapter which in the end we decided to call a demo. Our second goal was, and still is, to increase the scope of the game, and that is where you come in.

With your support, we will continue to work hard and create 9 times the content, which will be presented through 8 additional chapters for you to explore and enjoy. At the rate of developing one chapter per month, we predict that the game will be available for download in July, 2018.

Here is how we plan to spend your very much appreciated donations. If we surpass our budget, we'll make sure that every penny goes to making a better final version of the game, but in a way that will not change our scheduled release date.

Risks and challenges

Considering this is the biggest project we've taken on thus far, missing the deadline was one of our main concerns. That's why we’ve planned out our timelines carefully, set reasonable deadlines, and added some pretty decent buffers as well.

Since the core of the gameplay is ready, we’re not expecting too much trouble on that end. As you’re reading this, we’re going all in, primarily on polishing up chapter I based on your feedback, and also working on chapters II and III, so make sure to pay close attention to our updates.

If we surpass our required budget, we will provide stretch goals that rely on bringing in some external help, so we can improve the game further, while still delivering on time.

We’ve been working on this project full time for several months, using up the vast majority of our savings in the process, and your donations will help us keep going. Hopefully, we will also be able to stop mooching off of our loved ones.

If you have any questions, comments or doubts regarding our campaign, please feel free to contact us directly, by twitter (@PocketMana), or email us at:
hello@myunclemerlin.com

Any feedback you can share will mean a lot to us, and it will help us make the best game we can.

Support

Select this reward

Pledge $1 or more
About $1.00

The Supportive Associate

Your name will withstand the test of time in our credits section, on a list of previous owners of the coveted Checky Pointy Amulet.
We encourage you to come up with a silly pseudonym, similar to what can be seen on the page bellow.

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Pledge $10 or more
About $10

The Committed Apprentice

Aside from getting a Steam Key and your name in the credits, you'll also have our utmost respect for not giving into the temptations of a solid bargain... and you can't really put a price on that! Come to think of it, you can in this case... and it's 2 dollars exactly... Still, utmost respect for a couple of bucks? No better bargain than that!

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Pledge $20 or more
About $20

The Invested Journeyman

By making this pledge you will earn access to a couple of early development builds. Aside from that, you'll also become a member of a private Discord group, where you'll be able to chat with us directly, give us your suggestions, and play a big part on deciding which stuff makes it into the final version of the game.

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Pledge $30 or more
About $30

The Mellifluous Evoker

If apart from what you saw, you also enjoyed what you heard, you should definitely consider this one.
The final version of the game's soundtrack, will consist of 9 chapter themes, and will also have close to 90 location melodies. That's like 2 hours of music right there!

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Pledge $40 or more
About $40

The Aesthetic Conjuror

If you were impressed with the skills of our artist, you'll probably want to get your hands on his digital art book, which will be full of concept art, tips and tricks of the trade, and even some of his personal thoughts regarding the work.

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Pledge $60 or more
About $60

The Let’s-Not-Get-Carried-Away Magician

If you're always harassing your game master to share more about the world and the characters, this could be the tier for you. You'll be getting a digital lore book which will consist of more detailed descriptions of the characters and creatures, locations and even the universe itself.

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Pledge $100 or more
About $100

The Inspired Enchanter

If we managed to tickle your fancy regarding the production of the game, you'll be happy to know that this tier includes a game design bundle. It will center around a large game design document, but will also include some of our reports, comments, notes, diary entries, discussions and a bunch of other stuff.

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Pledge $200 or more
About $200

The Playful Warlock

If you've played the demo, you might have encountered the Invisible Flying Teapot. This cute example of "hidden" content, shows that even though some things might look odd and silly at first, they often prove to be just that, but will also put a smile on your face. So this tier is for those who are willing to pitch an absurd idea, just to watch us squirm as we try our best to incorporate it into the storyline.

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Pledge $500 or more
About $500

The Contributing Witch

The population across the universe of My Uncle Merlin is a wacky bunch, but there's always room for one more. If you choose this reward, we will create one of the characters together, and he/she/it will sit and stew at his location for ages. Feel free to draw inspiration from personal life. It can be your neighbor, aunt or uncle, brother, sister, or the wonderful magnificent you!

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Pledge $1,000 or more
About $1,000

The Gregarious Arch-Mage

By even considering this reward, you probably can't get enough of our infectious trio, so we strongly suggest you contact a professional, and seek help.
And after that, if you're still up for it, we would love nothing more for you to come and join us and experience the mild bleakness of our city, and the joy of slavic hospitality, which will come in handy since the price of your trip is not calculated into this reward.
Get ready to be force fed delicious soul food by kind, old ladies, explore the town's sight (yup, singular), and drink rakija... lots and lots of rakija.
Živeli!

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Pledge $2,000 or more
About $2,000

The Imparting Grand Master Wizard

If you've never made a game yourself, or if you simply like our project so much that you really want to be a part of it, this is probably the way to go. You'll get a chance to get to know us, our view of the project, see all aspects of our development process, and in the end, create an awesome location all of our players can enjoy.